


one night

by athenasdragon



Category: Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik
Genre: Canon Compliant, Epilogue, F/M, Post-Canon, loosely inspired by one thousand and one nights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 01:36:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17889095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athenasdragon/pseuds/athenasdragon
Summary: The first night after Chernobog's defeat, Irina is disappointed to realize that it will take much longer for Mirnatius to trust her. She tells him a story.





	one night

When I laid down next to my husband that night, it was late and I was soft with relief and with the hot bath I had taken. My situation was still precarious—but only in the ordinary way of an inexperienced Tsarina who was not yet with child. There had been a commotion of cleaning up and pressing a handful of silver into the palm of the maid who had doused the demon, and reassurances and confessions and enough heavy-handed censorship to convince the Tsar’s advisors that the situation was, for the moment, stable, and that it would be beneficial to take a few hours of rest before the flurry resumed.

Alone in my quarters at last, I had shed my layers and stood over the steaming tub, hair still braided around the back of my head and my icy crown drawing the warmth up through me like a chimney. When I touched the water it was hot enough to stir up my blood and make my skin scarlet and prickling.

After, when I failed at banishing the startled openness in Mirnatius’s gaze from my mind, I slipped back through the connection between our chambers and found him seated on the edge of his massive bed, hunched forward and shirt unlaced, elbows resting on his thighs and hands dangling limp. He did not look up when I entered. He rather looked like the wet lump of ash left on the hearth after Chernobog’s destruction. There had been a free joy in him when his demon had been vanquished, but now he sat and stared blankly into the fire.

I opened my mouth to say that he should sleep—that tomorrow was sure to be full of meetings and that this was his chance to enjoy a night of not being Chernobog’s puppet—but what came out instead was “How are you?”

Mirnatius scoffed but remained motionless. “Back to trite pleasantries now, are we?”

Of course this sharpness would still be between us. He had never known what it was to be his own vessel, safe from Chernobog’s nocturnal rampages, and I was still more or less an unknown variable—one who had made an attempt on his life before. Indeed, I didn’t know if I had anything to fear from Mirnatius himself. Habits may take a long time to unlearn, even if they were not yours in the first place.

I cleared my throat. “Hardly. I wished to remind you that it would be advantageous for you to be seen visiting my quarters, now that other more immediate concerns have been addressed.”

“A remarkably cold way of saying that we’re stuck with each other for the foreseeable future,” Mirnatius drawled. “Are your desires so insatiable, dear wife? Is there something about staring death in the face that makes you crave a bedfellow?” He finally looked up at me, perhaps to see the flush creeping up my neck. “Well, I cannot say the same.”

“I am not suggesting that we should… consummate our marriage this very night,” I managed to get out. “Only that it will look odd if you continue to avoid my chambers now that people are satisfied that you are… well. We must at least look as though we are trying for an heir.”

“Yes, you and your father would love to move the bloodline along as quickly as possible, I’m sure.”

I stared back at him until the sharpness left his expression, replaced once more with uncertainty. “Do not accuse me of neglecting your interests when I came here in good faith with a suggestion that would benefit us both.”

Mirnatius’s gaze slipped off of me and back to the fire dancing in the grate. Sweat stood out on his forehead, shining in the light and slicking the curls at his temples where he had run his hands through his hair.

“Lie down,” I told him, forcing my voice to become soft.

It was several seconds before his head twitched towards me, acknowledging the request but not fully engaging. “I beg your pardon?”

“You will have trouble sleeping, but you must. Lie down. I will tell you a story.”

“You will—”

I cut him off with a firm hand against his chest, which seemed to startle him enough that he obeyed, falling back against the exorbitant mass of pillows, his eyes once again on my face rather than on the hearth. Removing my shawl and leaving it on one of the bed posts, I went to the fire and doused it, leaving only a few candles to cast a dim glow over the scene. This made it a fraction easier when I eased my weight onto the bed alongside my husband and lay carefully at his side. Though we were not touching, I could feel the stiffness of his body through the mattress; I was excruciatingly aware of his arm lying inches from mine.

“A story, then?” Mirnatius said after the silence had drawn out to an intolerable length, as though he could think of nothing else to say.

“Yes,” I said hurriedly, and cleared my throat. “I have heard, my Tsar, that there was once a woodcutter who made his fortune selling the finest timber from the woods. He had many servants, and a dozen healthy children, and a hardworking wife.

“Every year he took his cart deeper and deeper into the woods to find the best groves. Early one spring he rode into the forest alone to seek the best place to send his workers. He brought with him a satchel filled with fried potato and brown bread and dried plums. Late in the day he came to a river, swollen with the spring melt and too deep to cross. He tied his horse and sat on the bank to eat and think.

“As he ate the dried plums, he spat out the hard stones onto the earth. A white squirrel appeared out of the brush, curious at the presence of a man. The woodcutter considered catching it, but it was too beautiful a creature to kill, so instead he simply watched as it sniffed around the plum pits. It took one up into its mouth but choked on the stone and died.”

“A little heavy-handed, darling wife,” Mirnatius commented drily, but I could feel the tension in his body relaxing as I spoke.

I continued as though he had not interrupted. “The woodcutter took up the squirrel carcass, a little sorrowful but mostly pleased that he would be able to enjoy some meat with his supper. As soon as he caught it up, he felt an icy wind, and he looked up to see a Staryk warrior standing on the other side of the river.

“’That squirrel is property of the Staryk,’ the warrior said, ‘and you have killed it. I must take your life in return.’

“The merchant begged and wept and protested that he had not killed the squirrel, but the Staryk did not respond. He stepped across the river, the water freezing beneath his feet to support him—”

“The ice would float downstream,” Mirnatius grumbled.

“The water freezing to support him,” I repeated, “and he raised his sword above his head as he reached the bank where the woodcutter cowered. As his blade flashed silver like ice, the man cried out in a last desperate attempt. ‘Wait!’”

There was a long stillness in the dark before Mirnatius spoke. “Well?

I smiled, though he would not be able to see it. “I shall tell you the end of the story tomorrow night, in my quarters. For now you must sleep.”

He grumbled something and the mattress shifted as he rolled over away from me, but he made no more protest—nor did he banish me from his bed. The first night done, then—our first night truly alone together. It felt like more of a milestone than any of the nights since our wedding. Another night tomorrow and a thousand more after that, and if I already had Mirnatius hanging on my every word with a simple folk tale, then perhaps they would not pass _so_ unpleasantly.

But I said nothing more that evening, as promised—not even when his arm inched over to rest against mine sometime in the early hours of the morning.


End file.
